OFFBEAT: Film actor Gerard Butler at Munster Family Christian Center today for free event Story

Movie actor Gerard Butler, the popular star of films such as "Law Abiding Citizen," "Bounty Hunter" and "P.S. I Love You" is in Munster today as a guest of The Family Christian Center to promote his new movie "Machine Gun Preacher."

The public is invited to the free event and there are two opportunities to attend his presentations, which are at 5 and 7 p.m.

Butler, 41, first became a household name in 2004 after director Joel Schumacher cast him as the masked lead in the film version of the stage musical "The Phantom of the Opera." Though not usually thought of as a singer, his vocal talents even impressed Andrew Lloyd Webber.

More recently, it's been Butler's fit physique, especially his defined abs, that have earned him attention, especially after showcased in his guise of a gladiator in the 2006 film "300."
But this new project spreads a far more important message of awareness and faith, according to David Jordan Allen of the Family Christian Center, with Butler's soon-to-be-released new film offering a story and a role which even the actor describes as "moving."

The new movie, which he'll be discussing, is called "Machine Gun Preacher" because it is the inspirational true story of Sam Childers, who is played by Butler.

Childers, a former drug-dealing criminal, experienced a life transformation when he found an unexpected calling as the savior to hundreds of kidnapped and orphaned children in Sudan.

The former biker gang member, who is now 49, is the founder of the Angels of East Africa Rescue, an organization that rescues children from starvation, disease and enslavement in territories controlled by the brutal Lord's Resistance Army, a renegade militia that forces the youth generation of the country to become soldiers even before they reach their teens.
Directed by Marc Forster and distributed in the U.S. by Relativity Media, the film is rated R and opens nationwide in select theaters beginning Sept. 23.

Butler, who was born and raised in Scotland in a devout Roman Catholic family, is also a trained lawyer, but decided to explore acting in the mid-1990s after a small role in the James Bond film "Tomorrow Never Dies" in 1997.

For more information, call the Family Christian Center at (219) 922-6500.